Conventional techniques for processing video segments in hypermedia documents and other similar applications generally provide only a very limited level of video-based interactivity. Although hypermedia documents such as web pages often include links to various video segments, such documents are primarily text-based, and typically utilize images and video merely as illustrative entities.
An example of one such conventional video processing system is the Video Mosaic (Vosaic) system described in PCT Application No. WO 97/22201. The Vosaic system incorporates real-time video into standard hypertext pages, and utilizes a video datagram protocol (VDP) for handling the transmission of the real-time video over the Internet or other type of network. The VDP is designed to minimize inter-frame jitter and dynamically adapts to the client CPU load and network congestion. In Vosaic, the video information is streamed across the network from a server to a client in response to a client request for a web page containing embedded videos. The Vosaic system provides several classes of so-called meta-information which include hierarchical information, semantic description, as well as annotations that provide support for hierarchical access, browsing, searching and dynamic composition of video information.
However, the interactivity provided by the Vosaic system and other similar conventional systems remains unduly limited. More specifically, these systems generally fail to provide simultaneous access to information which is associated with the video segment. Another drawback is that such systems generally do not allow links to appear and disappear as the video progresses. In addition, links in the conventional systems typically provide a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) including an address or physical location of a file or other document, but generally do not provide significant additional information about the link itself. Furthermore, the conventional system links are generally a 1:1 mapping between the link and the file or other document.
As is apparent from the above, a need exists for video processing techniques which can provide users with improved video-based interactivity, without the limitations associated with the above-noted conventional systems.